Churches must make every Sunday a Christmas Day if they want to bring their lost worshippers back into the fold, according to a new study.

Churches must adopt a cinema-style “multiplex” model of worship if Christians are to be persuaded to carry on turning up on Sundays, the report says.

The research, based on interviews and questionnaires of more than 4,000 people, found that loss of faith is just one of the many reasons why people stop going to church.

Growing up, life changes, social and family demands, irrelevance or sheer boredom were all as important as loss of faith in persuading one-time worshippers to stay at home on Sundays.

In Gone for Good, academics Leslie Francis and Philip Richter say churches should capitalise on the annual “churchgoing surge” that takes place every Christmas and make every Sunday like Christmas Day.

They also argue for a “multiplex” model of church where different churches cater for different niches.

“If members become dissatisfied with one church, they are encouraged to attend another, rather than leave altogether,” said Mr Richter, of the Southern Theological Education and Training Scheme.

“Individual churches need to play to their strengths. If someone leaves your church, you may be able to point them to another church where they can feel more at home. There is no one-size-fits-all remedy for church leaving.”

The study aims to address a crisis of worship where, during the last 30 years of the 20th century, churchgoing plummeted from 12 per cent to just 7.5 per cent of the population.

According to the Christian Research’s English Church Census the decline continued into this century also, with more than three million people or 6.3 per cent of the population attending church by 2005.

For decades it was assumed that people stopped going because they had stopped believing.

Church leaders were among the most surprised when the 2001 population census found that more than seven in ten people professed the Christian faith, indicating that there were plenty of believers “out there”. Most of them just did not go to church.

Dr Francis said: “We discovered a variety of factors at work in people's decisions to stop coming to church. Our hope is to offer a vision of the church that will encourage people to come back and enjoy being together again with other Christians.”

He said the churches should make sure they offer every Sunday the kind of warm welcome given to churchgoers at Christmas.

While this would not mean putting on a sparkling Christmas tree, crib and mince pies each week, it would mean good cheer and lots of singable hymns.

Dr Steven Croft, a senior adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, described the research as “a convincing theological underpinning for the mixed economy church.”